"Mr. Forde, I have nothing to do, and I will have nothing to do, with you or your wife or your children."
Lord Darsham's tone was as conclusive as his words. Nevertheless, Mr. Forde would have clung to this last straw, and shown him still more reasons why he should make all right with his directors, had not Williams taken him by the arm and half pushed, half dragged him to the front door, and thrust him without ceremony out into the night.
"I really think the best thing I could do would be to go and drown myself," he thought, as he looked up at the window of the room where Henry Werner lay dead; but he was not of the stuff suicides are made of.
He neither drowned nor hanged himself, swallowed poison nor cut his throat. He went home and slept upon his trouble instead.
To Mrs. Mortomley's relief, the coroner's inquest, held to find out the why and wherefore attending Mr. Werner's decease, resulted in a verdict of "Accidental Death." The jury, it is perhaps unnecessary to state, added a recommendation that chloroform should never be inhaled save under the advice and in the presence of a medical man.
What good purpose they proposed to effect by this advice was known only to themselves, but the next day it appeared in all the dignity of print in the daily papers, and was in due time copied from them into the country papers, and so read in London and throughout the provinces by all whom it might or might not concern.
Whatever Williams' opinion of Mr. Forde's utterances might be, after a night's reflection he was too discreet a servant to give utterance to it, and consequently his statements were perfectly satisfactory to jurymen and coroner alike. The City and the West End were so far apart that not a whisper of embarrassment had reached the ears of the two doctors who gave evidence in the case. The dead man had been far too astute to leave even a scrap of writing indicating his design, and it was with a feeling of no common satisfaction that Lord Darsham, after that anxious hour was over, gave an attendant undertaker audience, and instructed him to provide a strictly private funeral for the morning next but one following.
Having done this, he walked with a lighter heart to his hotel, having told Mrs. Mortomley he would see her again the following day, but he had not left the house ten minutes before a man sprucely dressed, jaunty in manner, fluent of speech, assured as to demeanour, rang at the visitors' bell and asked to see Mr. Werner.
"Mr. Werner is dead," answered Williams, looking doubtfully at the new-comer, who wore a geranium in his coat, and used a toothpick freely during the interview.
"I heard something about that. Awkward, ain't it?" remarked the free-and-easy individual. "I'll have to see Mrs. Werner, that is all," he added, after a moment's pause.